The Apple iPhone turns 10 years and still going strong

“You know, everybody has a cell phone, but I don’t know one person who likes their cell phone. I want to make a phone that people love.“ - Steve Jobs.

Ten years ago, Apple launched their first smartphone that ended up revolutionizing an industry. The iPhone launched at a time when dumb and feature phones ruled the market, and BlackBerry, Palm and Windows Mobile “smartphones” were dominating businesses.

What made the iPhone so special was its elegant design, its incredible ease of use, and most importantly, the multi-touch screen. Attractive, beautiful icons, and simple navigational menus made the iPhone an instant hit, even though it lacked plenty of features that were already available in other smartphones, like 3G data speed.

The launch of the iPhone came as a surprise to many of Apple’s suppliers, even though the company had expanded its product portfolio to similar devices like the famous iPod.

“We still have the voicemail from Steve Jobs when he called the CEO and founder here,” said Skyhook’s David Bairstow, a company that supplied technology for the original iPhone. “He thought he was being pranked by someone in the office and it took him two days to call Steve Jobs back.”

The original iPhone had a 3.5” display with a 480x320 resolution, which is a far cry from the iPhone 7 Plus’ 5.5” display with 1920x1080 resolution, and the 4K displays of other smartphones. The entry level iPhone had just 4GB of storage and only worked on AT&T’s slow EDGE network. What’s more, it didn’t even have the App Store that finally catapulted the iPhone as the market leader, featuring just an email app, a browser, and a few other apps that were quite advanced and easy to use that anything else available on the market. Despite its many shortcomings, it wouldn’t be wrong to say that the main reason why the iPhone really took off was its multi-touch display, something that had never been introduced on a mass-consumer smartphone before. It made the phone so much easier and faster to use compared to other phones that featured capacitive touch screens.